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Sunday January 27, 2013 10:19 AM

I listen to presidential speeches with an ear to the parts about personal finance. In President
Barack Obama’s second inaugural, he made a few interesting points.

The first reference came when he said, “For we, the people, understand that our country cannot
succeed when a shrinking few do very well and a growing many barely make it.”

I immediately wondered: Do we as a country really understand this?

I don’t think so. If we did, I wouldn’t receive numerous emails from people criticizing programs
that help those who fell into the housing sinkhole. Their complaint? Why should those people get
help when I did all the right things financially and I don’t qualify for anything? The email
writers see irresponsible people who don’t deserve help. They don’t acknowledge the predatory
practices that pushed some borrowers into mortgages they couldn’t afford.

Obama went on to say: “We believe that America’s prosperity must rest upon the broad shoulders
of a rising middle class. We know that America thrives when every person can find independence and
pride in their work, when the wages of honest labor liberate families from the brink of
hardship."

On his first point I agree. The middle class is the focus of much of the country’s attention,
but often at the expense of the poor. If we truly cared about the poor, we would have a federal
living wage. The federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. How can families get decent housing, pay
for the necessities and save for retirement or their kid’s college education on about $15,000 a
year?

Obama also talked about equal pay for women, arguing that “our journey is not complete until our
wives, our mothers and daughters can earn a living equal to their efforts.” As the mother of two
daughters, I’d like specifics on what more the president hopes to do to eliminate the gender pay
gap.

I don’t believe enough people, as Obama claimed, “recognize that no matter how responsibly we
live our lives, any one of us at any time may face a job loss or a sudden illness or a home swept
away in a terrible storm.”

Income inequality is increasingly dividing our country. Many of the haves think people only need
to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. They arrogantly believe they have achieved success on
their own. And many of the have-nots often don’t help their case when they act financially
irresponsibly. Yet even when they do make mistakes, we should have compassion and fight to maintain
the social safety nets — Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security — that, as Obama said, “do not sap our
initiative. They strengthen us.”

Obama still has hope.

“We are true to our creed when a little girl born into the bleakest poverty knows that she has
the same chance to succeed as anybody else,” he said.

I was that little girl. I’ve known hunger. I nearly ended up in foster care. But I believed that
I could succeed. And I did it. But not alone. I had help. I had my grandmother. And she had help
through the state medical- assistance program that she relied on so I could get treatment for
rheumatoid arthritis.